Every time a popular role model suffers a few (okay, a lot of) transgressions, we want to drop them faster than our silver-mercury dental fillings. But maybe even our disgraced role models can still teach us something.

Let’s get this picture straight. Jobs have contracted for 17 straight months, the national unemployment rate has soared to 9.4%, and in California, unemployment is 11%. More than 1.6 million jobs have been shaved from the economy since Congress approved President Obama’s stimulus plan in February. To counteract these historic job losses, Obama announced […]

Charles Guiteau, the assassin of President James Garfield, futilely argued in court that it wasn’t his bullet that had killed the 20th president, but rather incompetent medical care that took his life. Although Guiteau’s defense was preposterous (he was subsequently hanged), most historians now agree that the agonizing blood poisoning and bronchial pneumonia Garfield suffered […]